


Tear Us Apart

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Jealousy, M/M, Murder, Mystery, Peril, Pining, References to Suicide, Romance, Two people who cannot seem to communicate, casefic, deviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-31 13:24:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late summer, and Sherlock is called to investigate a suicide on PC Bob Taylor's doorstep. Problem is, the suicide is actually a murder, and as the bodies begin to pile up, Sherlock spends more and more time with PC Taylor - much to John's dismay. </p><p> <i>John shakes himself a bit and tries to forget what Lestrade told him. Probably just a mistake, like he said, and besides, they’d never actually had a discussion about being exclusive, though John thought after almost three months of rather regular shagging it was a bit implied. John is hesitant to put a name to it, but he knows there’s more than affection in the twist of his heart when he catches Sherlock’s eye across a room, in the fierce protectiveness with which John defends his life. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Tear Us Apart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175868) by [ogawaryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogawaryoko/pseuds/ogawaryoko)



> Neverending gratitude to my crack beta team of Mydwynter and HiddenLacuna. You guys are the absolute best.

The sun is burning low in the sky, a vibrant orange that slants through the sitting room windows and sends a beam in a brilliant arc down the hall, through the open door, and across a single, long, bare foot that peeks out from under the edge of the duvet.

“You look utterly debauched,” John whispers approvingly, nuzzling into the damp curls at the back of Sherlock’s neck.  He shivers when Sherlock shudders and tightens his body down on John’s cock.

“A bit—oh—a bit premature for that description, isn’t it?” Sherlock pants. He pushes back until he can’t go any further, John buried inside of him as far as he can physically go.

John grunts, grips Sherlock’s hip more tightly. He loves the position they’re in: lying on their sides allows him to see all the way down Sherlock’s long, graceful body, the grey duvet still barely covering his legs.

“It really isn’t,” John says, and wraps his hand around Sherlock’s erection and strokes and pulls and fucks until the flash fire of orgasm overwhelms them both and they sink into oblivion in a late summer sunset.

…………………………………..

“Meant to ask you earlier,” John says, admiring the way Sherlock’s biceps flex under smooth skin as he towels off after his shower the next morning. “Where’d you end up yesterday? I would have met you—I was sent home a bit earlier than I expected.”

Sherlock finishes drying and tosses his towel on the floor. John tries hard not to roll his eyes and reminds himself to pick it up later.

“Camden,” Sherlock says, slipping on a pair of pants. “Suicide. Well, not suicide, murder obviously, but you know the Yard. Useless, mostly, but at least one of them thought something was off and called for me.”

John blinks. “Did they, now?”  That was rather odd—no one called Sherlock in on cases except Lestrade and sometimes Dimmock, if he was feeling particularly needy or hopeless. “Must have been new. How did that go over?”

“Yes, relatively new, but a bit older than the typical PC. Career change. Previously a middle manager at a Sainsburys. Possibly Tescos. No, Sainsburys.” Sherlock slips on his trousers and begins to fasten them, and John can’t take any more of the reverse strip tease. He kneels up on the bed and catches Sherlock by a beltloop and reels him in to press kisses to his chest, flicking his tongue over a nipple. “Oh Christ, John,” Sherlock gasps as he arches into John’s touch. “I—you were at the clinic, sorry, wasn’t sure if—“

“Don’t really give a damn,” John says, and palms Sherlock’s cock until he can feel him starting to get hard under the fabric. Christ, Sherlock’s gorgeous, and if John thought he was in danger of being overwhelmed  before, adding spectacular sex to the mix has left him floundering, unable to pull himself free. “Anything on this morning you couldn’t let drop?”

Sherlock dips down to capture John’s lips in a deep, filthy kiss that lasts until Sherlock’s mobile chirps insistently from the bedside table.

“Shit,” Sherlock mutters as he pulls away. Reluctantly, John notes with satisfaction. Sherlock flips over the mobile and his lips twist with irritation. “Those cretins have managed to bungle up even something so simple as a search of a dead woman’s flat. I’m sorry John, but I—” Sherlock looks beseechingly at the door and John chuckles, even as his erection throbs a bit with neglect.

“As if I’d ever stop you,” he says, and shakes his head affectionately as Sherlock throws on a shirt and bolts for the door. “D’you need me?” he yells as Sherlock clatters down the stairs.

“Not yet,” Sherlock answers, and the door slams behind him.

John sighs. He knew when this started Sherlock would be a bit flighty to have any sort of relationship with, but frankly, the sex is amazing enough to make up for it.  Sherlock had thrown himself into it with the same sort of reckless abandon he shows to most things, and John has been thrilled to go right along. Even if frequent interruptions for cases or evidence or sudden epiphanies about murders does give John blue balls more often than ever before in his life.

 _The Work is first,_ John reminds himself as he shoves his hand down his shorts and has a rather unsatisfactory wank before his own shower.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Turns out Sherlock does need him, after all, if for nothing else than to hold evidence bags and take notes and be a willing audience for the dressing down Sherlock gives a couple of the forensics techs unfortunate enough to be on the duty roster that day.

John is leaning against the worktop in the kitchen when Lestrade walks in, the strain of having Sherlock running down his forensics team evident in the set of his shoulders.

“Cheers,” John says. “Didn’t realize you’d been assigned.”

“Are you kidding?” Lestrade asks, and sits down in a kitchen chair. “Noone else would have him on a murder case. Anyway, figured you’d have known that. How was Camden, by the way?”

John blinks. “What are you talking about?”

“Melinda Barry. The woman found murdered yesterday? I could have sworn PC Andrewes said you were there.”

John shrugs. “Not me,” he says. “Must be mistaken.”

Lestrade pauses, and his forehead wrinkles in a way that looks like he’s about to say something uncomfortable.

“Look, John, I don’t…I don’t know quite how to say this, but the PC yesterday was sure, said Sherlock was with a small, blonde man. Said they were chatting and getting on like a house on fire, so she assumed it must be you. I mean, she’d never met you, but…”

“She assumed, knowing Sherlock Holmes’ reputation, that the only person he could be friendly with, especially someone who fits that description, would be me.”

Lestrade looks a bit pained. “Well, yes. And she said, well. Sherlock had his arm around him.” This last is said in a rush and Lestrade flinches a bit and looks down at the floor.

John prides himself on his poker face. He can’t outright lie worth a damn, but he’s incredibly good at schooling his face into utter impassivity, and it takes all of his will to do so right now, to not betray a hint of confusion and small flutter of panic in his stomach.

“I’m finished with this lot of idiots,” Sherlock announces as he sweeps into the room, startling John enough he almost stumbles. Sherlock gives him a look but doesn’t say anything. “It’s not a total loss,” he adds, turning to Lestrade, “but it could have been. Come, John.” Sherlock turns, the movement setting the stacks of papers on the kitchen table fluttering and John just stands there for a moment.

“I’m sure she was simply mistaken,” John says, and leaves before he can see any sympathy in Lestrade’s eyes.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

John watches Sherlock out of the corner of his eye the entire way home, but absolutely nothing seems amiss. He’s absorbed in his phone, as always, but otherwise seems completely normal. He even leaves John to pay for the cab, the berk, although John’s fairly sure the cabbie knows Sherlock and probably even owes him a favor.

John shakes himself a bit and tries to forget what Lestrade told him. Probably just a mistake, like he said, and besides, they’d never actually had a discussion about being exclusive, though John thought after almost three months of rather regular shagging it was a bit implied. John is hesitant to put a name to it, but he knows there’s more than affection in the twist of his heart when he catches Sherlock’s eye across a room, in the fierce protectiveness with which John defends his life.

The trouble is, despite the enthusiasm with which Sherlock shares his bed, John’s not exactly sure what Sherlock is feeling. It’s a bit like trying to hold on to a shadow—and dropping something solid and sure into the middle would destroy it utterly.

“So, how was Camden yesterday?” John asks as he pushes the windows open as wide as they’ll go. The heat really is getting oppressive, sticky and warm, and the late afternoon sun is pouring into their flat.

Sherlock’s eyebrows twitch. “How was it? I haven’t the faintest. I was there for a case, John, not a grand tour.”

John tries to busy himself with getting a beer from the fridge so he doesn’t have to look Sherlock in the face. _Rubbish liar, rubbish liar_ , he thinks. “Oh, Lestrade just said the report around the nick was that you’d gotten on well with a PC there. Well, they thought it was me, actually; not sure how that could have happened, with the uniform and all.” John turns around and leans against the worktop and takes a deep pull from his beer.

“Ah, yes, PC Taylor. He does rather look a bit like you, come to that. He’s the one who called me, actually. Found the body. She was a neighbor of his. He was off-duty,” Sherlock adds, the narrows his eyes. “You’re not…you’re not _jealous,_ are you, John?” Sherlock has a bit of a smirk on his face, and John knows there’s no sense in denying it, but a bit of deflection to protect the softer parts of his heart is absolutely necessary. He puts his beer down and crosses his arms over his chest.

“So what if I am, a bit? I don’t recall being asked to share.”

Sherlock’s smirk turns into a feral grin, and he stands in front of John with his perfect posture, head slightly tipped, and hooks a single finger into the notch of John’s collar.

“That’s because noone is going to,” Sherlock says, and slithers down John’s body until he’s on his knees, his bright blue eyes the last thing John sees before his own close from sudden, swift, and bone-deep pleasure.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

The next morning John’s just lacing on his boots when Sherlock flies into the sitting room.

“There’s been another murder in Camden,” he says, and hops a bit as he tries to tie his own shoes while still standing. “You’re coming this time,” he adds, and snatches a pastry from John’s plate and stuffs it in his mouth before John can protest, winking and swinging his hips a bit as he strides for the door.

“Hang on a minute then,” John grouses, and finishes his boots before taking the other pastry from the box and follows Sherlock down to catch a cab, grumbling the entire way. Sherlock’s such a bastard sometimes, but all he has to do is flash that smile and John’s lost. And oh, does he know it. John sighs with disgust at his own weakness and locks the door and climbs into the cab.

“Oh, there was blueberry?” Sherlock says, eyeing John as he tries to eat quickly without making himself sick. Christ, he’s not even had tea. His headache later is going to be _spectacular._

“Piss off,” John says. “You had a chance to choose, and you chose poorly. So what’s the story?”

“Madeline Burke, age 53, same general neighborhood, same presentation of the body, same shove out of a window. How people are being pushed out of windows and no one sees or hears anything at all, even in the dead of night, is beyond me.”

“If people reported every single strange noise they ever heard you’d be complaining of how stupid they all are.”

“True. But at least people would be observing _something_. Data, John. I need _data_.”

“Well, you’re about to get it because we’re here.”

John can feel the shift in his brain, the call to action that sends a jolt of adrenaline to cascade over his nerves and leave him twitching. The cab pulls up next to a block of rather dreary industrial-looking flats, all looking about the same shade of dull brown-grey, stark and grimy against the blue summer sky. A few look as if they’d been spruced up at some point, painted and with pots of flowers on the steps, but in general the entire neighbourhood is just a bit shabby.

“There you are,” Lestrade says, leaving a knot of officers stationed next to a curtained off space on the pavement and meeting them halfway, near some emergency vehicles.

“Precisely where we are supposed to be. Imagine that,” Sherlock snarks. “Same neighborhood as before. Is PC Taylor here?” Sherlock asks, while pulling on a pair of gloves.

“Yeah, he’s around somewhere, I’ll have him called.” Lestrade says, and lifts the curtain aside and follows Sherlock inside.  John steels himself for a moment, pausing with one hand against the side of an ambulance. He breathes, tries to calm his racing heart, and will himself into not having any unfortunate flashbacks.

“It is pretty messy in there,” a voice says behind him. John turns quickly to see a PC standing behind him—middle-aged, blonde, close to John’s height and can only be PC Taylor.

“Obviously,” John says, and winces internally at the Sherlockian sneer in his tone. God, he’s not even seen the body and this case is getting to him already.

“Yes, well, she did fall seven stories. It’s too bad, really. Glad Sherlock’s here—I’m sure he’ll sort it quickly. He’s so brilliant.” He smiles and John shifts uncomfortably on his feet.

“Well, I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that,” he says, and feels the urge to be where Sherlock is, even if that is a rather shocking and grisly crime scene.

PC Taylor doesn’t really catch the hint and starts walking with him, John remembering too late that he’d  been called to the scene as well. “Listen,” Taylor says quietly. “You’re a good friend of Sherlock’s, yes?”

John can hear the male conspirator tone in his voice and wants to both laugh hysterically and throw up. “Yeah. Yeah, you could say that.” The distance between the ambulance and the blue privacy curtains never seemed so far apart and John keeps his head down and manoeuvres around a pair of emergency workers, who are chatting and killing time until the body is released.

Taylor doesn’t seem to be deterred by John’s pace. “Well, we…we seemed to get on last time, and I know that a crime scene is a hell of a place to meet someone, but. Well. Do you think he’d mind if I called?”

“He prefers to text,” John says as he lifts the curtain and steps inside, barely even blinking at the sight of Sherlock dipping his gloved finger into Madeline Burke’s blood and smearing it on a slide.

“Ah, John, there you are. Hold this, will you?” He hands John the slide and John shakes out a clean handkerchief to lay across his palm. Sherlock drops the slide onto it and turns back to the body.

“Quiet. Knitter. Had a budgie or other small bird. Spent weekends in the country, usually horseback riding. Knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head and then shoved through a window.” Sherlock stands and squints upward in the midday sun. “Her own window. Her flat is right up there.”

John breathes a sigh of relief, finds that the sight of Madeline’s twisted body has slipped into clinical detachment, and crouches down next to Sherlock, bumping against his shoulder in the process. Sherlock raises his eyebrows, but John doesn’t care in the slightest. He’s being utterly ridiculous. This case is really getting to him.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s 8 o’clock the night after Madeline’s murder, and Sherlock is pacing the floor with no shirt on, four nicotine patches stuck to his arms, and his fingers twisted into his hair._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to Mydwynter and Lacuna for excellent beta.

It’s 8 o’clock the night after Madeline’s murder, and Sherlock is pacing the floor with no shirt on, four nicotine patches stuck to his arms, and his fingers twisted into his hair.

“It’s utterly ridiculous. She’d been in bed, got up and went to the front door and let in whomever it was she found there, someone she obviously knew, but before she could do absolutely anything whatsoever to leave any sort of clue, she’s bashed over the head with a glass bottle and shoved out of a window.”

John curls up in his chair and watches Sherlock spin on his heel to walk back the other direction and flop onto the sofa with a groan that sounds like a distressed cow.

“Did the bottle ever turn up?” John asks, hoping if he asks enough questions Sherlock will find a tangent to run with.

“No. Based on the miniscule shards of glass found on the rug near the door, the murderer smashed the bottle into as many pieces as they could manage and probably scattered it along the street in tiny little shards, impossible to tell one from the next. Or get a print from them. It’s maddening. The entire flat was wiped absolutely clean.” Sherlock shoves his hands into his hair again and frowns.

John hates this part of crime-solving, when Sherlock is more frustrated and annoyed than deliberate and contemplative. It’s as if he has to run through all of the simple solutions first and discard them in a huff before he settles his brain to more serious deduction.  It’s a glorious thing to watch, when he goes quiet and still and meditative, his entire body absorbed in the task before him and almost vibrating with the energy his brain is expending.

Right now, though, that energy is blooming into a full-on pout, and it’s driving John mad. He sits down on the sofa and pats the cushion next to him. A neckrub might relax him.

“What?” Sherlock snaps.

John rolls his eyes. “Just sit, brat.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “I don’t have time to be an object of your sexual lust. I have work to do,” he says, and the pitch of his voice freezes John where he sits. With that, Sherlock stalks off toward his bedroom and slams the door behind him—a clearer “fuck off” John had never received in his life.

John sighs.  It stings even as John knows he probably should have just left Sherlock alone with his thoughts and not even attempted any sort of intimacy, physical or otherwise. It’s what he would have done before, and now tenderness has clouded his better judgment and left him standing on shaky ground of his own making.

John hears Sherlock’s mobile trill mutely behind his closed door, and then a low murmur of voices.  He sits miserably on the sofa, idly flipping through the channels and trying to shake off the aftereffects of his own stupidity.

Not long after the bedroom door opens and Sherlock emerges, fully dressed, hair beautifully combed and sharpest black suit on.  John gapes at him a moment.

“I’m going out,” Sherlock says. “I’ve got a few leads I need to follow up on. Don’t wait up for me.” He starts for the door before pausing and turning back to John. “I—“ he starts, and then clamps his mouth closed, indecisive and unsure.

John takes a breath. “No, it’s…it will be fine.  I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Sherlock gives John a long, searching look, but whatever he’s looking for he doesn’t seem to find. “Yes. I’ll text if anything interesting comes up.”

“No you won’t,” John laughs, relieved. “Go on.”

Sherlock smiles wanly as he closes the door.

John flops back against the sofa and passes his hand over his face. Christ, he never really thought everything would become so fraught, so full of pitfalls and traps to catch the unwary.

Well, instead of sitting on the sofa and feeling sorry for himself, John figures the next best thing would be to act like an adult and find some dinner. The leftover Chinese food sounds less than appealing, so John gives in to temptation and walks down to the nearest decent chippy and munches greasy, salty, vinegary goodness on the way back.  It’s a lovely walk, skirting the edge of the park, the sun slowly sinking below the skyline and highlighting the puffy clouds on the horizon that are sure to mean rain and cooler temperatures tomorrow.

John grins as he reaches Baker Street and closes the front door. Sherlock tries to deride fried food as horribly pedestrian and refuses to eat when John ducks into a chippy for a snack, but John’s started buying the largest order just to accommodate his constant pilfering. This time he’s not getting any and he’ll silently pout about it once he spies the paper in the bin. 

John chuckles to himself and just as he drops his keys on the table his mobile rings.

“Hi, is this John?” says a slightly familiar voice.

“Yes, who is this?” God, he’s getting so many odd calls these days he’s going to have to change his number.

“It’s Taylor. Bob Taylor. We met in Camden yesterday.”

John’s stomach tightens. “Yes, I remember. How can I help you?”

“Well, I tried ringing Sherlock but he’s not answering. He left his jacket here, and he took a cab, so he’s already gone. I just wanted someone to know where it was in case he wondered where he’d left it.”

John pauses. It’s near 30 degrees outside—but he’d had on his suit jacket and a fine white shirt when he’d left. “And where, exactly, is here?”

“My flat. It was a bit warm in here, and, well—“ Taylor clears his throat. “Anyway. Tell him, will you?”

John nods for a moment before he remembers he’s on the phone. “Ah, yeah. Yeah, I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks!” Taylor chirps and John hangs up immediately, feeling a bit sick on too many chips and the small curl of disappointment and fear twisting his stomach from the inside out.

…………………………………………………………………….

Sherlock whirls in not twenty minutes later and finds John curled into the corner of the sofa. His jacket is off and his shirt unbuttoned one button too far, and the sheen of sweat on his neck and curling the tips of the hair at his temples makes John simultaneously ravenous and irrationally angry.

“Find what you were looking for?” John asks, voice low.

Sherlock gives him a narrow-eyed look. “I really didn’t,” he says slowly, and approaches the sofa more carefully than usual. “Taylor wanted to show me a map he’d drawn up correlating the locations of the victim’s flats with local cinemas. Completely useless, though their paths did parallel fairly often. Not unusually so, though.”

John shifts in his seat. “And yet you’ve no jacket. You left it at Taylor’s flat.”

“Yes, I realized as soon as the cab pulled away. It was a furnace in that flat, 30 degrees at least. His flat is in the back, in the lee of the building. Completely stifling. I’d go mad.”

John looks up to where Sherlock is looming over him and stands abruptly, causing Sherlock to take a stumbling step backward. He twists his fist into the front of Sherlock’s fine, white shirt and pulls him forward until John can bury his nose into the notch of Sherlock’s collar and breathe him in. He smells like himself, soap and sweat and starched collars.

“And this is why you come back with your shirt open, is it?” John whispers, and runs his nose along the long, smooth column of Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock shivers and closes his eyes. “I didn’t expect jealousy to this extent,” Sherlock says.  He wraps his arms around John’s waist, resting his hands over the curve of John’s arse. “If you wish to continue our sexual relationship I suggest—“ John cuts him off with a deep, open kiss, the sort of kiss that John hopes communicates everything he’s trying so hard not to say. It’s bad enough he can’t hide his jealousy, but Sherlock is keen enough to know that jealousy is likely rooted in something much deeper, and John had best get it under control if he ever hopes to have that discussion on his own terms.

John pulls Sherlock down onto the sofa so that Sherlock is straddling his thighs, knees pressing tightly on either side of John’s hips. Sherlock is so tall like this, his beautiful back straight and proud.  The light from the single lamp across the room casts his face in angular shadow, making it difficult to see his expression. John quickly undoes Sherlock’s belt and flies, dips his hand inside and finds Sherlock is already hard, pressing hot and smooth against his palm. Sherlock gasps once when John swipes his thumb over the slit, and his eyes grow wide when John tastes the moisture from his own thumb.

“You are so incredibly sexy,” John says, opening his own trousers and fisting his cock until he arches, full and hard, under Sherlock’s thighs. Desire races down his spine until he can feel it tight in his balls. “It drives me mad, some days. God, Sherlock, scoot up a bit and let me get my hands on you.”

Sherlock does, slides forward and spreads his thighs until John can get his hand on both of them, too dry and too rough as he ruts against Sherlock’s cock and his own hand. Sherlock’s breath is shuddering and hot in his ear, his hands braced on the back of the sofa. John is sweating and swearing and shoving one hand down the back of Sherlock’s trousers to palm his arse and rub a finger down his crease as he strokes them with his other hand and like lightning, like the flash of an atom bomb, orgasm overtakes them both and John’s left panting in the cage of Sherlock’s arms. 

“Take me with you next time,” John says, eyes closed against whatever wreck he might see in Sherlock’s eyes.

“That was always the plan,” Sherlock replies, and presses a tender kiss to John’s temple.

………………………………………………………

John wakes later in a wash of blue-tinged night.  His nose is pressed into the warm curve of Sherlock’s spine, breath leaving a humid patch on his skin. He doesn’t remember going to bed; he blearily remembers Sherlock jostling him on the sofa after they’d cleaned up and sat together, Sherlock leaning his head on John’s shoulder and the atmosphere heady with tension. Regardless of their mutual silence, Sherlock had stayed, and John thinks that says enough.

John doesn’t even consider moving. He simply curls more tightly into Sherlock’s body, slides a hand around his waist, and falls back into oblivion.

………………………………………………………………

When John resurfaces again, it’s late morning and he’s startled to realize that he’s slept much later than he has in months.  He can hear his mum carping in the back of his mind about half the day being wasted as he groans and rolls over to find the bed empty beside him. 

He is utterly unsurprised.

He is, however, surprised by the crinkle of paper under his hand. He picks it up and curls up on Sherlock’s pillow to read.

_John-_

_Gone to NSY. Meet me in Camden, 8pm._

_-S_

And scribbled at the very bottom, almost as an afterthought:

_I keep thinking of you. It’s maddening._

John grins stupidly throughout his shower, breakfast, and on the way to his dentist appointment. A little old man sitting next to him grins back and John just smiles wider. He feels brilliant.

……………………………………………………………………….

The time to meet Sherlock comes around with the fluttering buzz of anticipation John knows so well. He steps out of a cab on Lamble Street and looks up at the multi-storey building in front of him. This should be close—Sherlock is likely to be at least somewhere in the neighborhood.

_Location?_ John texts.

_Grafton Road._

_ETA 5 minutes._

John sets off and finds Sherlock loitering in a doorway, smoking a cigarette that’s most of the way down to the filter.

“Ugh, did you have to?” John complains, and tamps down the little part of him that finds Sherlock’s smoking in any way cool or sexy. “It’ll be like licking an ashtray.”

“You have intentions, do you, Doctor?” Sherlock murmurs as he pushes away from the wall. John just smirks and bumps Sherlock’s shoulder.

“What have you got planned here?” he asks.

“A spot of surveillance. It’s ridiculous that we can’t find a single link of any significance between the two victims. There has to be something.” Sherlock walks quickly and slides his sunglasses on against the glare of the late summer sunset. They cross the Grafton Road and stop at a Boots on the corner. “Keep watch. Get a feel for who’s here. Locals? Residents? Mostly office workers? I’ll be back in around 30 minutes.”

John sighs. He hates this sort of surveillance. “Where will you be?”

“There’s a pub about five minutes down the road. I’ll be there, having a drink and getting to know the barman.”

John’s incensed. “You hate pubs! I, however, love pubs! Ergo, it would make perfect sense for me to have that side of the job.”

“You, my dear John, are less than capable of pulling off the sort of lie-within-truth conversation I’m sure to have. You have many excellent qualities, but faking it really isn’t one of them.”

John huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, utterly unconcerned how childish he looks. Sherlock simply beams at him and strides off down the street. It takes about 30 seconds for John’s better sense to reassert itself and he finds a bench along the pavement that gives a good view of the Boots and the entire street. He snags a paper and sits down to pretend to read.

Thirty minutes is an absolute eternity when you’re watching the quietest Boots in the country. Three women, six men,  and various children accompanying the adults all wander in and out. They look relatively local. A few chat with each other and, from what John can see through the windows, the pharmacist.  John’s seen enough to be satisfied. He waits a few minutes more, and at the 40 minute mark, he decides to find Sherlock in the pub. He’s probably half-crocked and forgotten the time, as little as he drinks. John crosses the street and walks about five minutes until he spots the White Crown.

Just as John starts to go back across to the other side, he catches sight of Sherlock’s curls in his peripheral vision. He’s down the Close, a narrow little alley right behind one of the four-storey buildings that dominate that part of Grafton Road. It’s dim, but John can make out Sherlock’s profile and that of another man, someone short and a bit stocky.

Taylor.

John’s heart pounds against his ribs as he watches Taylor lean conspiratorily close and appear to whisper in Sherlock’s ear, and the low rumble of Sherlock’s chuckle carries out of the mews and straight into John’s gut.

Sherlock steps back. John breathes for a moment until Sherlock places a hand on Taylor’s shoulder for a long second before turning and walking down the mews. His face lights up when he sees John.

“Ah, there you are! Come on, then,” he says, and walks back toward the White Crown.

“What?” John asks, his heart still stuttering.

“Pub? You, me, a drink? You’re right, I need you there.” Sherlock looks at him expectantly for a moment before walking off without him, fully knowing John will catch up, as he always does.

John glances to the side and sees Taylor watching them with avid eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a second,” he says, and walks back up the alley toward Taylor.

“I don’t really know what you’re playing at,” John says, and he hopes his voice is low enough and with enough implicit threat that there’s no need to repeat himself. “But leave off.” He doesn’t add the Neanderthal statement that Sherlock is his, his own, but oh, how he wants to. Wants to grab Taylor by the scruff of the neck and shake it into his thick skull.

Taylor, however, seems unimpressed. “Oh! You two are…I had no idea!” Taylor says, and the innocent tone of his voice is well overplayed. “He’s never said anything to me about it. I mean, why would he, but we have been talking quite a bit lately.”

“How lovely for you,” John says, and forces himself to breathe through his nose.

“Yes, it has been. He’s brilliant, but of course you know that.” Taylor’s grin turns slightly malicious. “I wouldn’t dream of getting between the two of you, of course I wouldn’t.”

John doesn’t trust him for a minute, but Sherlock is waiting for him, after all, so he nods and turns to leave. Maybe now he’s made a reasonable pass at scaring Taylor off, he’ll feel better and stop acting like such a jealous prat. John walks down the mews, avoiding the bins and bits of trash when he hears Taylor call his name.

“What?” he says, half turning to see Taylor smirking at him.

“Just because I’d not dream of getting between the two of you doesn’t mean Sherlock might not put me there,” Taylor says. “’Ta, Doctor Watson,” Taylor winks and John spins on his heel and walks out of the alley with his chin up. He walks until he reaches the White Crown and slumps against the wall by the door for a moment.

Nothing in his manner has suggested Sherlock was leaning toward having a bit on the side, if they could even be said to have anything like that. They’ve just been shagging themselves blind, too caught up in the passion of it to have a proper chat about what they’re doing, what they expect from each other.

John’s sure he’s expecting more than what they have now.  But is he asking too much? He has no doubts about the loyalty of Sherlock’s heart, but what about his body? Is it all just…just transport? Completely unconnected to loyalty? To love?

John slaps his hand once on the stone face of the building before yanking open the door and stepping into the dimly lit pub. Sherlock is waiting for him with a pint on the table for John, a whisky for himself, and as soon as he catches John’s eye his face looks very concerned.

John doesn’t blame him. He feels pretty concerned himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yes, he’s here now, but how long will that last if John tugs, even gently, on the shimmering skein of threads that bind them together? He can feel the strength of them every time he wakes up in Sherlock’s bed, his heart and his mind ever more entwined with each passing day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Mydwynter and Lacuna for excellent beta. You guys really bring the heat. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. (YOU'RE WELCOME.)

Less than thirty minutes after John slides into a seat next to Sherlock in the White Crown pub, it’s clear that Sherlock Holmes is starting to teeter toward drunk.

He’s had more than whiskey —he’s had at least a pint and another whiskey on top of that, judging by the glasses—in the last 45 minutes.  John smiles numbly and nods at all the right places, corroborates as he can Sherlock’s outlandish story about moving to the neighbourhood because of their friends but my, aren’t those suicides appalling?

“There must be something in the water. Darling, I’m not sure we should really decide on that flat after all.” Sherlock bats his eyes at John. It’s rather startling.

“It may not really be the thing,” John agrees, before he drains his pint. “We should probably go home, early morning tomorrow and all that.” He sighs wearily and calls a cab, and pours Sherlock into it over his protests.

“I’m fine. Fine! I was just about to find out what Melinda Barry was even _doing_ in Camden. The bartender remembered her.” Sherlock drops his head back against the seat and closes his eyes. “Didn’t have to interfere.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you were just about to crack the case.” John says. “Despite the fact you probably put down enough alcohol in the last hour to fell a man twice your size. Christ, for a self-professed genius you are _such_ a moron.”

Sherlock blows a raspberry. “I’m not. Been there before, even, and no one recognised me. Something  about birds, whatever it was. Stupid. Solved it in less than 5 minutes.”

John chuckles. His stomach is sick with nerves and half a pint, Sherlock managed to get himself drunk on a case (again), Bob Taylor’s disgusting grin is lurking at the corner of his mind, and John just wants to go home and take a shower and pretend the entire day never happened.

Instead, he maneuvers Sherlock upstairs and sends him off to change. Tea feels like a necessity so he puts the kettle on. He needs a few minutes of calm, quiet time to sort through what he saw in Camden. John shuffles over to his chair and collapses into it. The shower is still running, and John can smell a hint of Sherlock’s shampoo wafting down the hall with the steam. It’s something he has experienced hundreds of times before, and yet the visceral reminder of Sherlock’s presence feels like a punch in the gut. Yes, he’s here now, but how long will that last if John tugs, even gently, on the shimmering skein of threads that bind them together? He can feel the strength of them every time he wakes up in Sherlock’s bed, his heart and his mind ever more entwined with each passing day.

His musing consumes his mind so much he doesn’t notice Sherlock until he feels long, warm fingers slide through his hair, up from the nape and over the crown and back again. John sucks in a breath, almost startled but tingling with the touch. Sherlock does it again, dragging his fingertips over John’s temples, over the tops of his ears and back down, a soothing and intimate touch that sinks straight into John’s heart. It feels so soft, this exploration, not tentative but gentle, slow and thorough and like Sherlock is committing John to memory inch by painstaking inch.

 He can feel the warmth blooming in his chest, a glow of affection no longer eclipsed by fear. It feels like truth, deep and honest and overwhelming and John’s about to open his mouth on his declaration when Sherlock gently tips John’s head back and kisses him upside down on the forehead.

“Good night, John,” he says, and his breath smells like toothpaste and a hint of whiskey. John can’t even manage a sentence as he watches Sherlock, barely covered by a low slung towel, walk back toward his bedroom.

John waits until the light is switched off, counts five whole minutes before he follows. Swallows the words down into the deepest parts of his heart and climbs in beside Sherlock and tries not to choke on them when Sherlock turns in his sleep and curls close.

………………………………………………………………………………….

John wakes up to an empty bed, no note, and a pounding headache from the tension behind his eyes.

He shuffles off to the loo. The light is almost blinding but John squints through cleaning his teeth and swallows two painkillers with a handful of water.

John sits down on the edge of the bath and holds his head in his hands. He realizes he can’t continue torturing himself, wondering if Sherlock is really interested in Taylor—in anyone else, really—or if he’s only sharing John’s bed because it’s convenient. He’d said he wasn’t going to ask John to share, but was that a declaration? A tease?  John remembers all too well trying to reach out to Sherlock in a non-sexual, intimate way, to give comfort as a lover would, and being rejected. But then what does it mean when Sherlock comes to him and caresses him, touches him, it seems for no other reason than the pleasure of it?

Christ, he can’t think. His head is pounding and he’s guessing Sherlock doesn’t even have the good grace to have bags under his eyes, much less a hangover. Probably looks beautiful in a light summer shirt and pale grey slacks, and John realizes that he’s never going to sort what to do as long as Sherlock’s around, muddling things up with his perfect body and gorgeous hands and amazing arse and ... _fuck._

He’ll just have to worry about it tomorrow.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Unfortunately, John doesn’t really wait to worry until tomorrow. He’s stuck in a shift at the clinic that runs until the early evening, and is annoyed with himself that every minute he’s not with a patient he’s checking his mobile for texts from Sherlock.

There is a single text, sent just as his shift started: _Barry and Burke have same pharmacist. 2 hours and this is all I find? Bah._

John shakes his head. He tries to send one himself: _Sorry. How’s your head?_  Impulse makes him add: _Missed waking up with you this morning_ before he berates himself for a sappy twit and deletes it all, throws his mobile into his bag and resolutely ignores it the rest of the day until he finally checks it as he’s gathering his things to leave.

_Mobile dead. Meet me @ Santorinis restaurant Camden – SH_

The number looks familiar but it’s only after he searches it on his phone that he sees the text about Sherlock’s jacket and remembers.

It’s from Bob Taylor’s number.

John curses and stalks out the door, hails a cab and throws himself into the back. He gives the directions as quickly as he can and sinks into the seat. It’s still warm, even this late in the evening. John tries to breathe slowly through his nose and not jump to any conclusions whatsoever, though his body has a different idea as his heart kicks hard at his chest and there’s sweat forming on the back of his neck. He tries to tell himself that it’s just the heat.

Honestly. It’s the heat. Sherlock is a grown man, a brilliant man, a man conducting a serious investigation in Taylor’s neighborhood.  

Traffic is hellish, of course, and John’s ready to crawl out of his skin by the time he reaches the restaurant. It’s a large, newish building, with big plate glass windows and a beautifully landscaped al fresco dining patio. There are fairy lights strung across the trees and the entire scene is romantic and soft, and when John looks up from paying the cabbie and sees Bob Taylor lean across a beautifully laid table and lift Sherlock Holmes’ hand and kiss it, he turns right around, stops the cab, and gets back inside.

He’s not sure he breathes until he’s back at Baker Street.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

John is just finishing packing an overnight bag when Sherlock throws open his bedroom door, eyes flashing.

“You’re being completely childish.”

John blinks, grasps the handle on his duffel more tightly and swallows. “I’m glad to know we’re both aware of what we’re talking about. Saves explanations.” John nods and tries to maneuver around Sherlock standing in the doorway, but Sherlock moves to block him. Frustrating git.

“You can’t seriously think I’m interested in _Taylor,_ for God’s sake. I mean, really, John, use your _eyes.”_

_I’m trying not to use my heart,_ John doesn’t say. “I’m fairly sure what I was seeing, Sherlock. I’m not blind.”

“What you saw was an attempt on his part.” Sherlock huffs and crosses his arms. “I told him in no uncertain terms that our relationship is a professional one.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“I was there conducting surveillance and trying to get some sort of hold on this case. He invited himself to my table. He’s lived in that neighborhood for over 20 years—he can say with almost 80% accuracy who and who is not native to the area.”

John huffs. “Well, bully for him.”

“I’m not going to discard valuable assistance when it’s offered.”

John can feel the frustration, the anger and the fear constricting his chest and making it hard to breathe.  “I don’t expect you to.”

Sherlock growls and clutches his hair.  “This is maddening. How did you even come to be at the restaurant to start with? I didn’t tell you where I was. You were at the clinic.”

John’s a bit thrown by this conversational left turn. “You texted me and told me to meet you there!”

“I certainly did not. I know you get … perturbed when I demand your assistance right after work.”

John digs his mobile out of his pocket. “This, right here. From Taylor’s number, no less.”

Sherlock looks at the screen and presses his lips together. He hands the mobile back to John and looks down at the floor. “I never sent this. It would appear PC Taylor did it on my behalf.”

John can feel the colour drain from his face. “You … that means he …”

“Wanted you to see what you saw, yes.”

John backs up and sinks down on his bed. Has Taylor been manipulating what were purely professional interactions all this time? Twisting John up and giving him just enough to start doubting where he stood in Sherlock’s affections? Perhaps hoping John would back away instead of fight—which is almost exactly what he’d been about to do.

“It would appear that you are both right and wrong, John, in your assessment. And I bear some of the blame for it.” Sherlock sits on the bed next to him and twists his own mobile in his hands. “Taylor is a fairly intelligent, humourous man with more sense than most. And it was … flattering, I suppose, to see he’d developed a certain attachment to me. What caught my attention the most, though, was how it made _you_ react.”

Warning bells are going off on John’s head at this. He knew he’d been acting like a jealous prat, but he thought he’d been playful enough to keep it from being too serious, usually deflecting his insecurity into sex... “Wait. Are you telling me you thought my being a territorial wanker was _sexy?_ Oh my God, you utter _twat_.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“All that bit with the shirt—you did that on purpose!”

“It was delectable, heady, to watch you try to hide it.  I could see how you wanted me, how you wanted to _fight_ for me. I suppose …” Sherlock looks away and to John’s shock he can see Sherlock’s fingers are trembling. “I wanted to know how far you’d go. But I’d never have done what Taylor did, you have to believe that. I know I can be thoughtless, but even I would not be that cruel.”

John wants to throttle him. Weeks of uncertainty and nausea and fear, all because Sherlock had a little kink he wouldn’t talk about. But there’s a strange sort of Sherlockian logic to it: test a theory and retest it to see if your conclusions fit the facts. And underneath it all, in his own twisted way, it was all in pursuit of _John_. So with a surge of courage John turns and knocks Sherlock back onto the bed and climbs over him, straddles his waist and holds his shoulders down with both hands. The mix of surprise and lust on Sherlock’s face is priceless.

“I know we never talked about being exclusive. We’re friends, yeah? We’ve always been friends. But I’m telling you now I want you. I want everything. Your stupid experiments all night and you walking in naked from the shower and inappropriate texts and every single smartarse comment you’ve ever made to anyone.” John bends low over him, shifting to lean on his elbows, and lowers his voice. “The thought of losing out on this because I was too afraid to tell you how much you mean to me—I don’t want to think about it. But there it is, and here I am, and I hope I’ve not fucked this up forever just because I couldn’t stand not saying any more how much I care about you.” John finally forces his mouth closed before he says anything else.

He and Sherlock breathe at each other for a moment until Sherlock surges upward, wraps his hand around the back of John’s neck and pulls him in to kiss him, almost knocking their teeth together with the force of it. John kisses back hungrily before dragging his lips down Sherlock’s neck to nibble and taste the skin hidden under his collar.

“You have to know,” Sherlock says, his voice a rough whisper that cuts straight to John’s heart, his breath hitching in a gasp when John sucks a bruise over the junction between neck and shoulder. “I’ve lost myself in this. In you. Christ, don’t _stop_.”

John quickly unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt and pushes it off of his shoulders before guiding him back to lie on across the bed. The sight is intoxicating. Sherlock’s body is lithe and pale and muscular, and John has a hard time deciding what he wants to do first. He tastes the crest of one prominent hip just barely peeking above the waistband of Sherlock’s trousers, and grins against Sherlock’s skin when he gasps.

“All of this, off, now,” Sherlock says, tugging on John’s shirt. It’s an easy demand to comply with, so John strips bare in record time as Sherlock slides his own trousers and pants off. They come back together, skin sliding warm against skin.  John groans, his heart overwhelmed as they slowly rock together, an engulfing flame of desire he’s not sure will ever be quenched.

Sherlock wraps an arm around John’s back and buries his face in John’s neck, his breath hot and damp against John’s skin. The duvet rucks up around their feet as they move, and John impatiently kicks it all to the floor as Sherlock chuckles.

“We have plenty of time,” Sherlock murmurs, fingers playing in the hair at the nape of John’s neck as he arches under John’s body, his cock catching in the hollow of John’s hip.

John takes a deep breath before he starts to move again, and with that pause it’s as if time stalls, stops. Everything feels languid, blood-hot, and slow; the drag of skin, the gasps of pleasure, the moonlit gleam of Sherlock’s eyes in the half-dark. John can feel his orgasm creeping up on him right before Sherlock gently pushes him over onto his back and slides down his body to take John’s cock in his mouth.

John throws his head back into the mattress, his world narrowing to the startling heat of Sherlock’s mouth and the grip of one of Sherlock’s hands in his. Sherlock kisses, licks, slicks his mouth over John’s cock until the flash of John’s orgasm overtakes him and he gasps Sherlock’s name.

He opens his eyes to find Sherlock kneeling over him, fisting his own cock and eyes focused on John’s face. His expression is shockingly open, and John swallows heavily to see what must have always been there—desire, heat, need. He can’t speak, he can barely breathe past the lump in his throat, so he simply guides Sherlock with a hand on his hip to kneel over John’s chest.  John pulls him in until John can get his mouth over the head of Sherlock’s cock, the bead of precome salty sweet on his tongue.

 Sherlock doesn’t stop stroking himself; his knuckles bump John’s lips until he finally sinks forward enough John can suck him. The bed creaks as Sherlock thrusts into John’s mouth, tiny movements John tries to encourage by bobbing his head to take Sherlock’s cock in as far as he can. Sherlock gasps and his rhythm stutters, and when John pushes a knuckle against his perineum his entire body arches and he comes in pulses across John’s tongue.

John swallows quickly, cleans away the traces of come with his tongue before releasing Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock slides sideways and collapses onto the bed beside John, lying on his side with this head propped on his hand.

“You said you wanted everything,” Sherlock murmurs, his fingers trailing lightly over John’s chest. “Didn’t you know it was already yours?”

John grins into the dark, drags the duvet up over them both, and slowly fades into sleep, Sherlock tucked in beside him.

They sleep until Sherlock’s mobile rings, startling them both awake at 4 AM.

There’s been another murder in Camden.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It wouldn’t be the first time Sherlock would have left John at a crime scene without telling him, but John’s gut is telling him he needs to be on the other side of that door, right now. So he braces himself solidly against the floor and slams into the door with his shoulder as hard as he can. He grunts with the force of the impact, and the old wood creaks around the handle but doesn’t give._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the beta love to Mydwynter and Lacuna, who added a little Spice to the occasion.

 

John’s up and moving before Sherlock even finishes the call. There’s a flurry of clothes and quick washes and stupid, dopey, smitten grins on both sides, and they’re down the stairs and into a cab before John realizes that a crime scene probably isn’t the best place to be so disgustingly smug. Sherlock keeps sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye, and with the tiny upward curl at the corner of his mouth John gives up trying to be completely serious. His heart is soaring, he’s utterly punch-drunk with both physical and mental exhaustion, but there’s no place he’d rather be than here with Sherlock, rocketing through almost-deserted streets under a pink-stained dawn.

All of those softer parts of his heart, those parts he was trying to protect, have thrown the doors wide open and Sherlock has settled himself rather comfortably inside.

………………………………………………

The blue curtains are up and large floodlights have been brought in, but the  gloomy shadows persist  over an already-grim scene.  John shakes off the feeling and follows on Sherlock’s heels as he stalks down the pavement. When the cab pulled up Sherlock’s demeanour switched in an instant; all softness gone, all secret smiles vanished. His laser-sharp focus and fierce intelligence roars to life and John basks in the heat of the flame as Sherlock snaps off rapid-fire facts to the somewhat startled PC, who panics and starts fumbling for a notebook to write them all down.

John shakes his head fondly. He can’t blame her.  It’s like being caught in a riptide, with Sherlock, snatched up and pulled out to sea with no firm ground to find your way back on.  He looks around and realizes neither Sally nor Lestrade are in sight, so he watches for a moment as Sherlock paces about the body (a young woman this time—very young, and very petite.)  John sighs. He should probably tell Lestrade that they’re here, find out more of the details.

“Where’s Inspector Lestrade, or Sergeant Donovan?” he asks, and the terrified PC almost drops her notebook.

“Upstairs, sir, in the victim’s flat.  Rest of SOCO are up there, too.” She steps backward as Sherlock swoops past her, and gives John a bit of a pleading look.

John stops for a moment. “New on the job, then?”

She nods. “Yes, sir. A month.”

“Then here’s a secret. Just write down whatever he tells you and ignore him the rest of the time. If you need a translator come find me.”

Sherlock stands up and gives John a withering look. Even his rather ruffled hair looks offended. “I think we both know PC Khatri would be better served paying close attention to my methods. Besides,” Sherlock snatches the notebook from her hand, glances it over, and flips it around to show John. “Her note-taking skills show an organization of thought and presence of mind lacking in most police officers. She’ll be a DS in five years, a DI in nine. Now. If you’re finished besmirching my character, I’d appreciate some information from Lestrade. If you would be so kind.”

John chuckles and Sherlock rolls his eyes before going back to his work. John can’t help it—Sherlock may be able to turn off the rather soul-shattering experience they’d had not 8 hours ago, but he can’t. It’s still making him buoyant inside. He feels buzzy, light, and altogether stupidly happy.

John makes his way up to the victim’s flat, directed there by a few other officers he knows and is friendly with. He steps out of the lift on the 8th floor and finds Donovan standing with a small knot of officers, peering into a flat but not crossing the crime scene tape.

“Hallo, John,” Sally says, and the shadows under her eyes seem emphasised in the dim hallway light. “You look disgustingly chipper for this hour of the morning.”

“Yes, well, Army and medical training will do that to you. Awake and alert in the space of three seconds. Well, that and living with Sherlock.”

Sally snorts. “Yeah, I imagine. Where is His Nibs anyway? Boss’ll be wanting to see him.”

“He’s with the body. I’m sure he’ll be up. Anything interesting in there?”

Sally glances back into the flat. “Nothing yet. Well, nothing out of the ordinary of every other murder. Carmen Ellis, 26. Worked at the off-licence down the way.  Not married, has a girlfriend though.” Sally’s shoulders slump. “Christ, I’ve probably got to call her. No one else has.”

John winces in sympathy. “Sorry. It’s the worst part of the job. Believe me, I understand.”

Sally smiles tightly and turns back to watch SOCO, taking notes as she does. John waits around a few minutes but nothing more is forthcoming, so he decides he might as well go back downstairs with Sherlock. He’s just turning when movement a few doors down the hall catches his attention. A flat door swings open and Bob Taylor steps out, half-dressed and yawning. He fumbles with a large keyring packed with a dozen keys and a large gold medallion before he drops them, picks them up and almost drops them again before he can lock his door.

John smirks. There’s a pleasant ache in his jaw from last night’s activities and now a triumphant and possessive roar in his chest.  He crosses his arms and waits as Taylor starts their way, almost laughing as Taylor stops short when he realizes John is there.

“Morning!” John chirps. Taylor looks like hell, half-asleep and stubbled, his uniform shirt buttoned crookedly and tucked in too tightly. It makes John giddy.

“Ah, hello, Dr. Watson,” Taylor smarms, casting a quick glance over toward Sally. “Nice to see you again.”

“It absolutely is,” John agrees, and his voice drips with honey. “I hope you had a good night last night, _because I certainly did_.”

Taylor narrows his eyes at John. “It was very … productive,” he says. “If you’ll excuse me. Ma’am,” he nods to Sally and hurries away, tugging down his cuffs.

“Fix your shirt before the Boss sees you,” Sally calls after him. She shakes her head. “Four years in and he still can’t wake up like the rest of us. Can’t blame him as its not his normal shift, but still. And what was all that about, anyway?”

John plasters on an innocent smile. “Just making polite conversation,” he says.

“Mmmmhmmmm. Pull the other one.”

“Trust me, Sally, this is one discussion you probably want no details about.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I want absolutely no information about Sherlock Holmes’ private life.”

“And you’ll get none.” John grins. “But really, what’s Taylor’s story, anyway? Bit old for career change, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. Lots of people start late. If they can meet the fitness tests, and their exams are good, we take them. If you’re looking to be a cop at that age, its because you really want to be one, not some sort of young person fantasy of what policing actually is. Took him a while longer to get through training than most, though, with having to take bereavement leave in the middle and all.”

John ruthlessly tamps down the small flare of sympathy. “Yeah? Who for?”

“His fiancee. Such an odd thing, too. She was in prison for being involved in some scheme to sell illegal, wild-caught exotic birds of all the ridiculous things. We were in on it because DEFRA wanted Sherlock’s help to track the path of the stolen birds so they could find everyone involved. This was…oh, maybe six months before Sherlock’s, er, holiday.”

Something tickles the back of John’s mind. He’s fairly sure he wasn’t involved in this case—exotic birds is something unusual enough he’d have remembered it, he’s sure. “Well, okay, so…what? She was killed over birds?”

“No, it was suicide. Couldn’t take the prison term, though it was only 7 years. They were engaged. He’d had no idea about any of it. She was a veterinary assistant. Said she was working on the side for a rescue.”

John frowns. Taylor may be a complete shit but that’s a devastating experience for anyone. And since he and Sherlock have sorted things out, John figures can spare a moment of sympathy. “Yeah, that’s…that’s pretty terrible. Well, ‘ta, Sally. I’m going to get out of your hair.”

Sally waves him off, already turning to a SOCO team member covered head to toe in bright blue suit. John punches the lift button and gets on, his earlier euphoria a bit subdued after hearing about Taylor. It’s sad, really. Perhaps Taylor is just lonely, and Sherlock’s attention was perhaps a little too welcome? He’d been trying to make John jealous; the stupid prat probably wouldn’t even think twice about leading Taylor on if it served his purpose.

When John reaches the cordoned off area around the body, Sherlock is nowhere to be found. Lestrade gives him a wave, though, and says John’s just missed him, gone upstairs to the flat. John shakes his head ruefully. Typical.

But as John turns to walk back toward the flats, he’s hit by a wave of dizziness so strong he has to stop and sit on a nearby bench.  His stomach growls and John realizes it’s been well over 12 hours since he’d eaten, and he hasn’t had any coffee, tea, or caffeine of any kind. He’d better get all of this sorted quickly before he’ll be of use to anyone.

He makes his way down the pavement and around the corner to the nearest shop—the Boots he’d been watching a few days before. Fortunately they have a cooler with cold orange juice. John pops the top off and downs half of it before the refrigerator door closes, earning him a dirty look from the woman at the till.

“Low blood sugar,” he says, and her understanding nod allows him to peruse the energy bar selection unmolested by demands for payment. As he’s trying to decide between “Hi-power Cranberry Crunch!” and “Chock full ‘o Chocolate,” the pharmacist brushes past him. John glances at her, and she smiles and reaches for her keys to unlock the door to the pharmacy.

A big ring with a few keys, with a large gold medallion hanging off of it.

John feels like his brain has been thrown into overdrive. Pharmacist. All of the victims shared the same pharmacist. But Taylor isn’t a pharmacist. He was a…a…what did Sherlock say? _“A middle manager at a Sainsbury’s or Tesco. No, Sainsbury’s.”_  

“Where’d you get that keyring?” John demands, urgency making his hands shake.

The pharmacist looks startled. “Boots 50th Year. We all got one. It was…oh, about 5 years ago now. Are you okay, sir? Wait, do I recognize you? I do, you’re Dr. Watson! Oh, how exciting! Are you here for a case?” She’s beaming now and John wants to scream aloud, but he reins in his impatience.

“Yes, thank you, but … please, do you happen to know a Bob Taylor?”

“Bob? Oh, yes, he was manager here when I started. Lovely man, Bob. Shame about his fiancée.”

But John’s already moving for the door as she says the last.

_Sherlock, you great idiot, it wasn’t a sodding Sainsbury’s._

…………………………………………………………………………………

John can feel the beat of his heart in every slap of his shoes on the pavement. He pokes at the lift call button and flexes his fingers impatiently as he waits. He wants to get to Sherlock as quickly as possible, but he knows he can’t cause a scene and tip Taylor off. So when the lift doors slide open John jumps inside and pushes the button for the 8th floor, and tries to calm his breathing.

He can’t believe Taylor has managed, for almost three weeks, to completely fool Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock’s blind spots rarely, if ever, manifest themselves on cases, but it seems this time he walked wide-eyed and willingly into the most vicious trap that could have possibly been set for him: an appeal to his own ego and recently rediscovered sex appeal.  _You stupid, stupid man. I’m going to have to teach you the undeniable power of your own gorgeousness when this is over, just to keep you from doing something this idiotic ever again._

The lift doors open again and John strides out into the hallway. Sherlock is nowhere to be seen, so John pokes his head into the victim’s flat. Lestrade looks up from a drift of papers scattered across the floor.

“Sherlock in here with you?” John asks, and hopes he doesn’t sound too breathless.

“Was for about half a minute,” Lestrade replies. “Took a look around, deemed it all pointless, then left.”

“Any idea where?”

“With Taylor, I think. He was out in the hall when Taylor walked by; I saw him turn and look toward Taylor’s flat and then walk that direction, anyhow.” Lestrade eyes John critically. “Something you need to share, mate?”

“No … not yet. Let me talk to Sherlock first. It might be completely wrong.”

“All right. But don’t hold out on me.”

“Nope, wouldn’t dream of it.” John ducks back out into the hall and counts the four doors down to Taylor’s door, and knocks.

No one answers.

But John can hear the muffled sounds of conversation within, and the light from under the door flickers with moving shadows. He knocks again.

Nothing.

It wouldn’t be the first time Sherlock would have left John at a crime scene without telling him, but John’s gut is telling him he needs to be on the other side of that door, right now. So he braces himself solidly against the floor and slams into the door with his shoulder as hard as he can. He grunts with the force of the impact, and the old wood creaks around the handle but doesn’t give.

“Oi! Taylor! Open the bloody door!” John yells. He’s about to hit it again when the door pops open and Taylor is standing there with a smile on his face and a gun in his hand, held low and threatening just at his hip.

“Oh, do come in, John. Sherlock and I were just having a little chat.”

……………………………………………………………………

The first thing John sees is that Sherlock is sitting on a chair, hands tied together in front of him, in the miniscule space of Taylor’s sparse flat. John’s puzzled for a moment—Sherlock could have gotten out of that in heartbeat. But one glance at the barely-veiled interest in his eyes tells John everything he needs to know: Sherlock is here because he chose to be, and only still here because he wants to be, and Taylor’s about to tell him something he wants to know.  So John simply puts his hands in the air and sinks down onto the threadbare sofa. Taylor leans against the front of the door of the tiny flat, gun pointed directly at Sherlock’s head, and smirks.

“I have to be honest, John, I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” he says. “I thought you’d be long out of the way by now. I mean, this could have been so much neater than it will be. But you can’t expect everything.” Taylor sighs dramatically.

“I…I don’t understand,” John says. He really doesn’t, fully, but he finds the playing the ingénue usually gives the more talkative among them the opening they need to talk themselves right into a confession.  Sherlock smirks approvingly from his seat and John fights to keep the answering smile off of his face. 

“Won’t you tell him, Sherlock? You are so fond of hearing yourself talk.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “PC Taylor here was recounting his grievances. It seems his fiancée managed to get herself caught—by me, it seems—laundering illegally-caught wild exotic birds. Parrots, Cockatoos, that sort of thing. I was brought in to find the most likely route from capture to sale, and that route went right through Anne Farran’s flat. Taylor’s fiancée.”

Taylor laughs, and the sound is stretched and awful. “Seven years! She was given seven years,” Taylor says from the doorway. “Seven years and she couldn’t take it, not my poor Annie. Too much of a free spirit, needed to be always doing something, to be outside. It crushed her.” Taylor saunters over and sits down on the coffee table, his knees almost touching John’s. It’s suddenly and almost startlingly intimate, and John’s amusement turns to ashes.  Taylor’s face is a hair’s breadth from his own now, his eyes hard and searching. “They found her hanging by a bedsheet, a week after what was supposed to be our wedding date.” Taylor’s face crumples and John has to hold himself steady to keep from flinching backward. “She told me, she’d said Sherlock Holmes had done it, had found her and had her arrested.” Taylor looks up, eyes red and glassy. “And then turned her against me. Made to think I’d rumbled her, when I hadn’t, just to get her to confess.”

John blinks, incredulous. “So, what, this is some sort of sick revenge fantasy? You kill a bunch of people to get Sherlock over here? And then, what, seduce him into just letting you kill him?”

Sherlock leans forward on his chair, his pose almost a mirror of Taylor’s as he narrows his eyes and folds his hands together. “No, not exactly, John. He killed Melinda Barry, a woman he knew from his chats with her as manager at Boots, to catch my attention. He simply missed his opportunity to kill me the first night—and things changed a bit when he realized you were in the picture.  He over-complicated things, as most criminals have an annoying tendency to do.”

Taylor goes pale and his hand starts to shake. Sherlock continues. “The crux of the matter, however, isn’t anything to do with the women you killed. You have one motive: betrayal. Anne Farran believed you betrayed her, you hadn’t, and in turn you are hurt. But instead of discussing it like rational adults, as John and I had, she refused to hear you and severed all contact.” Sherlock has Taylor’s attention now, John fading into the background of his consciousness. “Yes,” Sherlock continues. “That really is too bad. Because it’s rather amazing what can be cleared up when two people truly connect, trust and rely on each other—“

“She wouldn’t ever listen!” Taylor shouts, and in an instant, he lunges across the tiny space and the gun is now pressed to the middle of Sherlock’s forehead. “She wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell her I hadn’t known! She hated me at the end, and I loved her! I loved her, and she’s dead, and it’s all your fault!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “But yet, Taylor, I never spoke to her. I never had any contact with Anne Farran. I only found her, and then the case was over for me. It was the police, and I’m guessing your DI, in fact, that told her you’d ratted her out. Classic strategy. I’m surprised you missed that, honestly.”

Every muscle in John’s body is vibrating, keeping himself in the background of Taylor’s attention, waiting for a twitch, a sign, something from Sherlock that will give him enough of an opportunity to act. It comes when Sherlock suddenly lifts his hands straight up and knocks the gun sideways, the barrel arcing over his shoulder and toward the wall. There’s a shot, and John braces, jumps, and hits Taylor in a full tackle, tumbling them both to the ground. A quick scramble for the gun ends when Sherlock kicks it away. John manages to pin Taylor down long enough for Sherlock to retrieve the gun, hands still tied, and point it at Taylor.

“That’s quite enough out of you,” Sherlock says, and Taylor stops struggling at the sight of his own gun looming in his face. John and Sherlock direct Taylor to the chair. John unties Sherlock’s hands and uses the ropes to tie up Taylor, and then John gives in to one of the most uncharitable impulses in his life and clips Taylor across the back of his head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out cold.

“That felt better than it should have,” John says, flexing his fingers and shaking the sting of the impact out of his arm. There’s a frantic pounding on the door, and he can hear Lestrade yelling from the other side. “See, I told you, I should have gone to the pub. How’d you figure it out? The keyring?” He turns to check on Sherlock and finds him staring with hooded, ravenous eyes. “What?” John says, though he already knows.

Sherlock lowers his chin a fraction and looks up through his eyelashes. “Only you could make assault with intent to harm so extremely attractive,”  he says.

John should be appalled, but he just grins and goes to open the door to the swarm of police officers waiting on the other side.

…………………………………………………………………

They should be tired.

They should be exhausted and sitting somewhere with a horrid cup of tea and giving statements to the police but instead they’d lit out of Camden after giving the absolute minimum of information possible and now Sherlock’s got John pressed up against the closed door of their flat, one hand in John’s trousers and his tongue down John’s throat.

“Jesus,” John gasps on an indrawn breath. “I … yes, God yes, like that.” Sherlock pops the button on John’s jeans and shoves them down until he can get a better grip on John’s cock and strokes him hard, much harder than John’s accustomed to but it feels brilliant, like a flashfire at the base of his spine. The flat is fully illuminated in the bright summer morning and John can see everything, every fleck of green in Sherlock’s eyes, every flyaway curl, every bead of sweat starting to form on Sherlock’s forehead. It’s almost startling, a vivid Technicolor replay of last night, when everything was dark and hot and a bit dream-like.

The tension in his groin grows all too real, though, pulls tight as Sherlock strokes him while pressing kisses under his jaw.  It’s almost too much, so John gently pushes Sherlock until he takes a step backward, his hand falling away from John’s body. John reaches out to cup his hand around Sherlock’s hip and rub his thumb over the ridge of the bone so prominent he can feel it through Sherlock’s trousers.

“I want to strip you naked,” John says. “Get at all of that gorgeous skin of yours. Press you to me until we’re sticky and too hot and we come until we pass out.”

Sherlock moans a little, and drops his head forward until it rests on John’s shoulder. He turns slightly and begins to kiss and lick and suck lightly on the side of John’s neck. “That sounds rather perfect,” Sherlock says, and pulls away to unbutton and shrug off his shirt.

John does the same, shucking shirt and jeans and pants as quickly as possible. When he refocuses after taking off his socks, Sherlock is sprawled over the sofa, stark naked, his cock bobbing lightly with every quick breath. He’s gorgeous, perfect, and there for him alone, so John wastes no time sliding onto his body until they’re pressed shoulder to groin, John’s knees around Sherlock’s thighs and his hands shoved up under Sherlock’s shoulders. Some urgency lost, they kiss with mouths slanting across each other, and John can’t get enough of Sherlock’s taste, of the heat of him, of his cock pushing insistently at the crease of John’s groin.

“Tell me the lube’s still in that basket,” he grits out, because he doesn’t want to move; who would when they’ve got Sherlock Holmes like this, aroused and straining beneath them? Sherlock throws an arm back to rummage around in the small basket around the side of the sofa and comes back with a palmful of slick. Everything becomes warm and wet and the bright spark of Sherlock’s touch shivers down John’s spine and tightens his balls.

Sherlock grins at his reaction and lifts his hips under John’s arse until they’re settled where Sherlock can circle his still-slick hand around them both and stroke with maddening slowness. John gasps and and wraps his hand around Sherlock’s, helps him pull them both into a deep, rolling orgasm that leaves John panting, lying plastered to the warm, soft skin of Sherlock’s chest.  It’s hot and sticky and they’re covered in come and lube, and John never wants to move again. Sherlock lazily drags his fingers up John’s spine until they rest at the base of his skull, teasing the hair there in tiny, gentle circles that make John’s heart swell.

 “You never said,” Sherlock starts, then pauses. “You never required that I be yours alone. Why?”

John sighs. “Because people don’t belong to people, Sherlock. I wanted you to choose me. I wasn’t sure where you stood regarding the whole…relationship thing. I was afraid to ask.”

“You’re not afraid of anything.”

“When it comes to you, I think I’m afraid of everything.”

Sherlock is startled enough he lifts his head looks hard at John’s face. “You still don’t trust me.”

John props his chin on Sherlock’s chest and meets his eyes. “No. I don’t trust _me_ to not screw this up. I don’t trust that I’ll not be that jealous idiot, I don’t trust that I won’t hold on too tightly. You’ll feel trapped and want to run, and I think if you ever actually choose to leave me— for someone else or not, doesn’t matter— it would almost be worse than…than when…”

Sherlock blinks, swallows heavily and then clears his throat. One hand cups John’s cheek. “Even when you thought I was dead, know that my sole purpose was to make it so I could come back to you, and you alone.”

John grins. “I do know that, now. And it's absolutely amazing.”

The exhilaration of their life together is absolutely fundamental, it seems; John marvels at how he could have so misjudged the depth of the connection that brings his life spark, heat, purpose.  He’ll never doubt it again.  John kisses him then, slowly, deeply, reveling in the security of that one truth, the bright summer sun warming their skin and filling the flat with golden light.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! And thanks for the patience as I struggled with getting this finished around a very busy holiday season. See you after Sherlock S3!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tear Us Apart Cover Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063349) by [consultingpiskies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingpiskies/pseuds/consultingpiskies)




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